My Family's History in Context of Chinese History

I think I am overdue to write up a little bit about what I learned while I was in China, about its recent history (and how it all ties with my family's history). Over the years my mother has passed down little bits and pieces of things to me, but during my most recent trip to Beijing, our fabulous tour guide put all the pieces together for me in a way that makes much sense.

China has had thousands of years of turbulent history. One of the causes of instability, but also of the richness of our culture, is that within the traditional borders of the country, there are numerous ethnicities. The most populous of these groups is the Han Chinese, which basically consists of people who look like me. This is over 90% of the country's population, but the country has historically been very diverse -- during our trip to the Great Wall, we passed by a Chinese group (wearing Chinese school clothes) whose students are fair-haired and light-skinned, and whose eyes are green or gray or light brown, with features that could have passed for Western. They were looking at our kids curiously because they had never seen real-life Westerners, but I was looking at them curiously because I had only heard about Chinese people who look like them, but never seen one in real life. In any case, little wonder is it that over the years the different people developed very different dialects and cultural beliefs.

Every few hundred years, there would be a new dynasty in China because one of the ethnicities would rise up against the emperor. When the new dynasties came in, the emperors were usually strong and had firm control of the country, but over the next generations, their heirs would be sloppy rulers and have much weaker control of faraway farmers, eventually overthrown by a new dynasty.

The last dynasty to be ruled by an emperor was the Qing Dynasty. In the 1800s, the Qing Dynasty was prosperous and exported many goods (such as silk, porcelain, and tea) to England. England was trying desperately to find something to balance out the trade, but China was self-sufficient, so England found opium as a viable export. This got everyone in China addicted, including the emperor. At some point there were well over 1000 tons of opium being exported to China per year. When the Chinese authorities began to seize and crack down on the trade, the British soldiers invaded, marking the beginning of the Opium Wars. In the 1840s, following the first Opium War, the Chinese government ceded Hong Kong to England, and Shanghai became jointly ruled by foreign forces and Chinese authority.

For various reasons, the Qing dynasty became weaker and weaker. When it was finally driven out by the Nationalist Party led by Sun Yat-Sen, the people were very grateful for the revolution. After Sun's death, however, the government again was weakened by his successors. When Japan invaded during WWII, the ruling Chinese government was so preoccupied by worries about the rise of the Communist party that they kept retreating instead of fighting the Japanese. My grandparents retreated (on foot, naturally) as the Japanese forces advanced, and every town they passed by they saw arms and legs in the trees after the bombing from the Japanese. The Nationalist government was so weak that they retreated all the way to Taiwan, where they still rule as the majority party. That was when my grandparents (on both sides) fled to Taiwan. For years, my maternal grandpa despised the Japanese and never bought anything made in Japan. My paternal grandpa worked on the force of the Taiwanese secret police that took people away who were heard speaking against the government. My paternal grandpa had a lonely end to his life, and my mother always said that it could be karma. (Compare this with my maternal grandpa, whose birthday is still annually celebrated in the family about 7 years after his passing.)

Eventually, the Japanese had to retreat as a consequence of Hiroshima. China fell to the rule of the Communists, led by Mao Zedong, who came into popularity because he was a viable alternative to the weak Nationalist government. Under his rule, kids were forced to "struggle" against their parents, which means that the parents were put on public display daily and their children needed to repeat everything their parents had said against the Communist government, following which their parents were publicly punished. Some parents were stoned to death this way. My cousins were forced to do this to their parents, and each night they went home, knelt at the feet of their parents, and cried for forgiveness. The "struggles" severed the ties between two generations and put an end to precious traditional values. My mom says that the reason why Chinese people throw trash everywhere now and have a poor sense of public manners is related to this. During a time when the kids ought to have been learning manners from their parents, they were taught to struggle against their parents. The Communist Party did this in order to ensure that no one could feel safe to speak out against the government, even in the privacy of their own homes. During the early rule of the party there was also rampant poverty. Each family was issued food stamps; even if you had money, you were not allowed to buy extra food, because extra food was simply not available.

As far as current situation in China, I think that Communism has led China to amazing improvements over the years, in a way that is not probable in a free society. I also think that the West can't possibly begin to understand situations in Tibet and Taiwan, without knowing the history that has led up to the way things are now. Yes, the Communist government has flaws, but it is hard to say what the country would have been like without the system that is in place now. 

That's what I understand. I tried to verify most of it via the web, but some of it is passed down via word of mouth through my family. At some point, I hope to be able to pass down what I know to my children, so that they can understand the recent history of China in how it has affected our family. I hope to also remember to tell them that my great-grandma (who was alive when I was a kid; my family has good genes to live until at least our 80s) still had bound feet, and that my paternal grandmother never learned to read because she was raised in an age when education for women was not valued nor common. History is as recent as you will let it be!

China!

I just got back from an amazing school trip to China. We went to Beijing, toured around for about 3.5 days, and then headed over to Shanghai for about 6 days. The kids had a very authentic experience -- in Beijing we were greeted by a partner school that did all kinds of performances as part of their welcome ceremony, and they also took us to one of their students' houses to show the kids how to make traditional northern dumplings. We ate a feast in that three-generation family's courtyard and the kids and the adults from the school sang spontaneously to entertain us, showing true Chinese hospitality in a way that you could not have explained to the kids in words beforehand. In Shanghai, our students stayed in host families -- an even more authentic experience. During the day, they went to classes with their host students in the morning (at a public middle school in Shanghai, with 60 kids and one teacher per class), and in the afternoons there were special activities planned for them, such as calligraphy class and traditional seal-cutting class. It was really neat; they really had a hard time picking out a favorite memory afterwards, because everything was so different. The teachers were wined and dined by the school as well, and even at the end, we enjoyed a spectacular performance of traditional instruments at our send-off party by this Shanghai school. The Shanghai school also had a plethora of extracurricular activities, such as Chinese orchestra (of traditional instruments), traditional Chinese opera (taught by a professional opera singer), and an English(!) drama class for 6th-graders, taught by an American! We got to see all of this in action, and our kids even got to participate in their Cinderella play-reading along with the Chinese students. Needless to say, it was a really unique and interesting experience!

For me, even though I had been to both Beijing and Shanghai before, this trip was a special experience. In Beijing, we had a fabulous guide who knew all the histories of the dynasties and leading up to the fairly recent introduction of communism in China. He was fabulous and truly an amazing character -- the kids wanted to take him with us to Shanghai! If you or your friends/family go to Shanghai, I would highly recommend looking this guide up well in advance (he books up quickly, sometimes months in advance); his name is Xiao Wei and you can reach him at weiyilun123 AT 126 DOT com.

In Shanghai, because I was there with 3 colleagues who were great fun, we went out one night and had a great time in the city. We had dinner on the Huangpu river, and then we went up to the top of one of the super posh hotels (costing around 1000 Euros a night) and had a drink at the top while overlooking the entire city. At 10pm, the city shuts down its lights to save energy, and we were there at the top while the blackout happened. It was really spectacular and special!

I also met up with my parents a few times during my stay in Shanghai, which was really awesome. They took me out to eat at one of the "famous" soup dumpling places that they had learned about from watching food programs on TV; for 35 very delicious soup dumplings and a bowl of noodles, we only paid a total of 38RMB for the three of us! (That is about 5 Euros total.) Amazing!

Another thing that made the trip special was to go to China with colleagues who had grown up in East Germany. A lot of the nuances which would have gone unnoticed by me (such as how certain people have power in the schools because they have shown loyalty to the party), did not go undetected by them. For example, did you know that in every school in China there is a special "Party Secretary" whose job is to ensure that the school does not speak or act in a way that is out of line with party politics? To hear the other teachers point out certain things and to also hear them speak of their own experiences back before the Berlin Wall came down, was fascinating for me and a great learning experience.

On the students' side, everything was pretty fabulous. In the beginning, we had some minor issues of lack of sensitivity towards the host culture, but by the end, the kids had seen and experienced so much kindness that they themselves were extremely grateful and gracious towards their host families. It was truly a cultural lesson you could not have brought to your school or taught in a vacuum.

And now, counting down till the end of school!

PS. I would have loooved to post some more photos from the trip, but I need to abide by school policy to not post student photos! Bummer... We even took some neat videos.

Shanghai Exchange

I just spent a weekend hosting four teachers from a traditional public middle school in Shanghai. Our school has an exchange program with them, where they take a small group of their students here to visit in the fall, and we take a small group of our students over there to visit in the spring. The kids stay with host families and go with their host students to classes, and the adults are hosted by local adults in order to get an authentic feel of the place.

It turned out to be very useful that I can speak Chinese. Two of the teachers spoke English very well, as they are English teachers at the school. A third one understood a decent amount, but a fourth one did not speak any English at all. It was not necessary, therefore, for me to speak Chinese, but the fact that I could helped all of them feel comfortable. Geoff tagged along to also be a tour guide, and we took the teachers to see all the usual touristy places.

We started off in Alexanderplatz on Saturday, took some pictures at the Rotes Rathaus (Red City Hall), and then they declined paying to go up the TV Tower, which is the highest point in Europe. I then took them shopping (as per their request), and after lunch we went over to the beautiful Reichstag, which is where the German laws are made. We had made a reservation beforehand, so we got to go up to the beautiful glass dome of the Reichstag, and to take a self-guided audio tour that introduced us to the features of the buildings surrounding the Reichstag and the features of the dome itself.

On Sunday, we first went to Schloss Charlottenberg, which is a beautiful palace built hundreds of years ago during the Prussian dynasty, and still today reflects the luxury of those times. During WWII, much of the palace was bombed and destroyed, so much of what you can see today is the result of reconstruction in the 80s. Still, you can get a sense of the grandeur that once dominated this palace. After some hours at the palace, we headed over to the famous Checkpoint Charlie to take some photos, and then we walked along the Eastside Gallery, which is a stretch of the remnants of the Berlin Wall that has since been turned into a symbol for hope and inspiration as artists have made the wall into an elaborate art display.




During the course of the day, I got a chance to ask about the school in Shanghai. One of the girls told me that in Shanghai, there are four tiers of schools: city-level magnet schools, district-level magnet schools, "normal" schools, and private or independent schools. At the end of every level of schooling (ie. elementary school, or middle school, or high school), kids need to take a city-wide test and apply for the next schools. The system is very competitive, because in order to get into a good college (or perhaps any college at all), you need to be from a top high school, which means you needed to be from a top middle school. There are some exceptions to this system, however, such as the fact that a kid who lives within a certain close proximity to a school has the right to attend that school, even if the kid is not academically qualified. And, on top of that, there is a lot of pressure from the government to make sure that ALL kids pass every class by the end of middle school, regardless of whether the child was qualified to attend this school in the first place. So, that creates a lot of pressure on the teachers AND on the kids who need to struggle to pass just ONE class, let alone all classes.

In Shanghai, this teacher tells me that they teach roughly only half of the time that I teach, but that in every class they have 40 kids. I asked her if she thinks she has enough time to reach every kid and to take care of them, and she said no. Most of her prep time is spent on correcting the daily homework that was assigned. The kids go home and most of them do their homework through midnight each night. So, it is an eye-opening experience for their kids to come to our school and see that our middle-schoolers have barely any homework and enjoy so much freedom at home and in school.

I look forward to visiting their school in April to see for myself what it's like!

LA and Shanghai

I just arrived back in San Salvador after a two-week whirlwind trip to Los Angeles and Shanghai. Honestly, I had been a bit antsy to get back, because I don't like to be on the road constantly, but I was ridiculously sad to say goodbye to my parents in Shanghai nonetheless. The older they get, the more heavy-hearted I feel when I leave them after each visit. (My mom especially misses me when I'm gone...) Unfortunately, for financial reasons, I see my parents at most once a year. ...Maybe some day things would change and I would live at a closer proximity to my parents, but until that happens, visits home are almost as difficult as not being at home, because my mom counts the days until I would have to leave again. :(


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Anyway, en route to China, I was able to see and quickly catch up with some high school friends (Cat, Helen, Danna, and Jenny) and to visit my sister, my cousins, and my grandma in Los Angeles! My short stay in LA was busy and fabulous. Since I only go back to LA once every couple of years, it was so good to hear how everyone's life is moving and changing ever-so-rapidly. I miss my California girls and my sister already... Seeing them and missing them made me reflect that we each pay a steep price for our wanderlust -- or any other life that we choose to live.

In Shanghai, I went with my parents to briefly check out the Expo 2010 (aka. World's Fair), for which the entire city of Shanghai had been transformed in preparation. But I also spent a good deal of time home with my parents, besides going out with my parents to eat and to go to the hospital. (--Long story, but I am on a two-month herbal medicine regimen until my "moisture diminishes", my "heat lowers", and the root cause of my recurrent infection is cured. It was actually my idea to try herbal medicine this time, because I had been sick for well over a month with a common recurrent infection, and Western antibiotics seemed to be of little help. I figured I've got nothing to lose in trying the alternative. Although, I had to ask my mom to sit and wait outside during my examination/consultation, and that was pretty awkward... But, really, I think it was definitely the lesser evil of the two possible awkward situations; she didn't even expect me to say that I am on birth-control pills, despite knowing that I'm 28 and that Geoff and I obviously live together!) At home, my parents and I watched a lot of TV, talked a lot, and I learned a lot about the history and attitudes of the mainland Chinese people. Consequently, I felt more connected with Shanghai than I had felt during my previous visit...

I also took some time in Shanghai to check out its swing scene! This was my second try at swing-dancing in Shanghai, because Geoff and I had gone two years ago to the only small bar that had hosted a weekly swing dance. This time around, the venues have changed and there were definitely more dancers. In fact, I got to meet various cool international folks who are currently living and working in Shanghai; they helped me to appreciate Shanghai as an increasingly international -- and metropolitan -- community. I had super fun dancing, and (even though I got a little out of breath) I was surprised to feel how quickly I was falling back into the rhythm of the music.

Now I am home! :) Am ready for some serious downtime before we head out again (to Peru, in mid-July). How funny is it that we always want to get away, and then as soon as we do, we start to miss home?